5 Cold War-Era Communist Cars That Are Weirdly Cool-Looking

Back in the day, before Russia and America became friends (kind of) and then frenemies (as currently seems to be the case), there wasn’t a whole lot of trade going on between the West and the Soviet Union or the Soviet satellite states that made up the Eastern Bloc (Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland and more). That meant the Communists of old were responsible for manufacturing their own rides. Detroit automotive muscle and steel, and sleek Italian racing power had little opportunity to wedge into the closed Soviet markets.

The result of this automotive isolation led to some pretty funky and innovative car designs. While most of the world wouldn’t pay much attention to the products of the Cold War nowadays (outside of rockets and revolution, of course), we’d like to take a look at five fairly cool Communist cars that were made during that failed socioeconomic system’s prime. And if you're a fortunate soul, you might even be able to get your hands on some of these quirky automobiles today.